Crusade (37 page)

‘I go the coast three or four times a year and enjoy the hospitality of the local governor at Messene. I’ve been following the Emperor’s plans with great interest. With the northern border secure, his dilemma now is the world of Islam, especially the Seljuk Turks, who pose an even more formidable threat than the Pechenegs.’

Sweyn was spurred on by Hereward’s enthusiasm.

‘I always knew you were alive. And I often thought about the Varangians, because I knew that many of King Harold’s housecarls came here to enlist.’

‘All those Englishmen are gone now, either perished in battle or retired to live out their days in peace. When Alexius called for help from the Latin Princes, I thought it might lead to one last adventure in my life – during which there was even the vague possibility of hearing a little of what became of all of you.’

Adela sprang to her feet.

‘Does that mean you are coming with us?’

‘Of course, let me repeat what the Emperor’s messenger read out when he appeared with his escort through the mist of my mountain home early one morning: “A brethren of Latins, led by a Norman duke named Robert and an English prince named Edgar, is at the court of His Majesty, the Emperor Alexius. One of the brethren, the Abbess of Fécamp, is called Estrith of Melfi. They have asked about an amulet called the Talisman of Truth.” He then looked at me and said that the Emperor thought I would like to return to Constantinople immediately and that they would escort me to a ship waiting in
the harbour at Messene. As you might imagine, I was gathering my things before the messenger had finished speaking. It was the longest journey of my life, but now I’m here.’

Estrith brought us all together in a circle, while Hereward took the oath of the Brethren of the Blood. She then spoke for all of us.

‘Now we are seven and united as a family at last. Let us pray for those no longer with us: Torfida, who met her end in the wildwood from whence she came; Martin, Einar and Alphonso in the heroic struggle at Ely; Gunnhild in the terrible pain she bore so bravely; and, in the tragedy of the putrid fever, our beloved sisters, Emma and Edgiva, Gwyneth and Wulfhild, Maria and Ingigerd. Let us also pray that Cristina is alive and well in Oviedo and enjoying a long retirement.’

Hereward said ‘Amen’ with the rest of us before adding his own reflections.

‘It is strange to think that those we remember so clearly as young and strong are now lying in the ground or are old and frail. My darling Torfida and our daughter Gunnhild, and so many loyal friends who became our family. Dearest Cristina was the oldest of all of us; she would be almost seventy now. I will send a messenger to Oviedo with our greetings and news. It will make an old lady happy to know we’re all together again.’

Hereward then turned to me. I saw his mischievous grin before he spoke again.

‘My Lord Prince, Hereward of Bourne at your service. May I accompany you tomorrow on your expedition to Jerusalem?’

I grabbed him and embraced his mighty frame.

‘As long as you don’t start ordering me around!’

‘Perhaps I would have done once, but you were a boy then. Now you are our leader and I will be proud to serve you. You have kept my family together for me and brought them to Constantinople. More than that, your Brethren have kept alive what the Brotherhood fought for at Ely. For all those things, I will always be grateful.’

I was moved by the great man’s words.

They made me feel humble, but very proud.

27. Battle of Dorylaeum

The vast army of Pope Urban’s Holy Crusade began to march east only a few days after it had been ferried across the Bosphorus. It was already mid-May and as hot as Hell. I had experienced the heat of Sicily, but few of the Crusaders had been that far south. What was even more disconcerting was to be told that beyond Anatolia, where we would turn south to Palestine, the heat of the day would be unbearable from spring until autumn. God help our men and horses.

Nevertheless, we were a fine sight – a rich tapestry woven from the many shades of bay, black and grey of our horses, the shimmering silver of our armour and the vivid crimson of our emblem, Christ’s crucifix. The seamstresses would be put to work to record scenes like these as soon as the Princes returned to Europe. At the front of the column, the crest of every hill provided an opportunity to look back and admire the spectacle.

In the far distance a rising veil of dust threatened to obscure the sun. The air around us was filled with sounds – from the piercing clamour of armour and weapons and the soft hum of more than two dozen languages, to the deep rumble of carts and the relentless thunder of horses. Mingled together it was sufficient to make the ground shake and the birds flee.

At no vantage point was it possible to see the back of
the mass of soldiers and all the paraphernalia of war that accompanied them. There were few cities that came close in number to even a third of the size of our massed ranks, yet we were on the move.

Every time I saw our long tail of humanity stretching into the distance, I revised my calculations, until, at over 75,000, I gave up and decided our multitude was too big to be counted. There can have been no force of its size to have left Europe since the days of Rome’s legions. We were a holy behemoth, woken from its long slumber and now making the world tremble.

The fortress at Nicaea was not far from the narrow strip of Byzantine territory on the Anatolian side of the Bosphorus, but it was a formidable obstacle. Its lord, Qilich Arslan, the Seljuk Sultan of Rum, was taken by surprise at the appearance of another Christian army so soon after the destruction of the army of Peter the Hermit. He was away with his army, far to the east, settling a small local dispute. A brave and resourceful leader, he had made a grave error of judgement, letting our vast army surround his city unopposed.

Scaling ladders, platforms, mangonels and springalds were prepared for the assault and, true to his word, the Emperor supervised the supply route from a base at Pelekanum on the coast. He also committed 2,000 of his elite soldiers under the command of Tacitius, one of the most renowned leaders of his army.

The first major encounter of the Holy War initially went well. The Council of War functioned as intended; the siege of Nicaea was well planned and the attacks efficiently
coordinated. Both traditional siege tactics were employed simultaneously: a complete encirclement of the city to enforce a slow strangulation of all life’s necessities and to break the will of the defenders; and an all-out, frontal attack by siege engines, battering rams and manned assaults of the walls to bludgeon the beleaguered inhabitants into submission. But the Seljuks did not lack mettle, and the siege continued for several weeks.

Then, just when we thought we were unassailable, the tenacity and organization of the Christian army were put to the test. A lone spy was discovered in the Christian camp – a wily Seljuk soldier, speaking Greek and passing himself off as one of Tacitius’s men. Under some painful interrogation and the threat of yet more hideous torture, he revealed that Qilich Arslan had just returned from the east with a huge army and was poised to strike. He was camped only a few miles away, and final preparations had begun.

The Council of War met that night to plan the response. Under orders to prepare in total silence, the army began to get into position from 2 a.m. By first light that morning, we were in position to ambush our ambusher.

The contingents of Raymond of Toulouse and Baldwin of Boulogne were to hold their ground in the north, at what was anticipated would be the centre of the Seljuk attack, while Bohemond of Taranto and Godfrey of Bouillon were to lay in wait to the east, ready to spring the trap. Robert’s contingent was to keep up the pressure on the city, while my small group was assigned the role of battlefield reconnaissance, reporting directly to Bohemond of Taranto.

The Seljuks appeared within an hour of the time we had calculated, swarming down from the hills like marauding ants. Their strategy was awe-inspiring, but predictable. Surge upon surge of closely grouped mounted archers cascaded down the slopes, loosing rapid volleys at speed from their small, highly manoeuvrable Steppes horses. Normally an onslaught that proved deadly to its opponents, it was a futile assault against a force of our magnitude with the resolve of its Norman and Frankish backbone.

Raymond and Baldwin’s position held firm. As soon as the entirety of the Seljuks’ attack had floundered against the Christian bulwark, Bohemond and Godfrey launched their heavy cavalry against the now static Seljuk army. Mayhem ensued and, realizing that his position was hopeless and his elite regiments were being carved into disparate and increasingly vulnerable groups, Qilich Arslan ordered an immediate withdrawal, prudently saving his army from complete annihilation.

Sweyn and Adela were riding to Robert’s position with news that the battle had turned in our favour when a large column of Seljuks wheeled round towards them in a desperate search for an escape route from the battlefield. A group of about ten saw the two isolated Christian knights and bore down on them. Sweyn and Adela turned and rode back towards us at a gallop, but their attackers had too much momentum and would soon overhaul them. I immediately ordered our force to go to their aid, but knew we had little chance of reaching them before they were overwhelmed.

Sweyn’s horse fell under a hail of arrows, one of which struck it in the neck, throwing Sweyn to the ground with a
sickening thump. By the time he got to his feet he was still stunned and the Seljuks were almost on top of him, but Adela had ridden back to get him and offered him her hand to help him on to her horse. With no chance of escape, she turned her mount towards the Turks and managed to get one arrow away. It was an outstanding shot that took the leading cavalryman right out of his saddle. Adela’s mount then started to panic and reared up as it saw the Turkish horses only yards away, tipping Sweyn off its back and unseating Adela.

Sweyn hurt his shoulder in the fall and could not get up, so Adela stood over him with her sword drawn. She managed to deal with the first Seljuk to reach her by crippling his horse. After swaying away at the last moment to avoid the cavalryman’s lance, she crouched low to slice his mount’s fetlocks with her blade, bringing horse and rider crashing to the ground. By then, two more were about to strike. She managed to avoid the first lance by deflecting it with her sword, but the second one caught her on the top of her helmet.

She stumbled away before collapsing, blood streaming down her face, just as Sweyn, now getting to his feet, managed to use his shield to defend himself against the next attacker before he was caught across the back of the shoulder by a blade swung by a Turk who had come up behind him. He cried out in pain and fell forwards in a heap.

Adela, unable to see through the stream of blood running from a deep gash to her head, threw off her helmet and wiped the blood away with her sleeve. She then ran back to protect Sweyn, screaming obscenities as she went. The Seljuk, who had appeared behind her and was about
to strike with his sabre, hesitated when he realized the Christian knight beneath him was a woman.

Adela turned and the two foes looked one another in the eye momentarily. Adela, covered in blood and with the fierce look of a determined warrior, set herself to defend the blow. But the Turk put up his hand to his comrades, returned his sabre to its scabbard and blessed himself before taking off his helmet and acknowledging Adela with a long and deliberate nod of his head. A handsome, swarthy man with a thick, curly black beard, he sported the red silk pennons of an officer tied to his conical helmet. Even though Adela was badly shaken, she nodded her head in reply and the Turk replaced his helmet. We were now only yards away ourselves; the Seljuks galloped off to seek their own escape.

Neither Adela nor Sweyn had suffered life-threatening wounds. Sweyn’s mail hauberk had absorbed most of the impact, but the bruising to his back was severe and there was the possibility of a broken shoulder blade.

Adela’s injury looked much worse, because of the amount of blood. She had a deep gash above her hairline, which would have left her hideously scarred had it been much lower. After the bleeding had stopped and she had been cleaned up, the damage did not appear too severe – other than to her helmet, which was in great need of the care and attention of the armourer.

Hereward was very impressed with the resolve they had shown and their martial skills.

‘You have been well trained and showed great courage. Adela, you saved your husband’s life; he should be very proud of you.’

‘I am, Hereward. And fear not, Adela will remind me of it every day!’

‘I feel honoured to be part of your Brethren. I would have had you both in the Varangian Guard in the blink of an eye.’

Adela did not complain of either dizziness or nausea, so it appeared her skull had not been damaged, but we knew from many battlefield injuries to the head that the full impact could well reveal itself later. As a precaution, she and Sweyn were sent back to the battlefield infirmary at the supply base established by the Emperor at Pelekanum.

When the Seljuk defenders at Nicaea saw what had happened to Qilich Arslan’s relieving army, they soon sued for peace. At this point, the first fissure occurred in the delicate relationship between Alexius and the leadership of the Crusaders. Led by Count Raymond, all the Latin Princes, except Robert and I, wanted to sack the city and exact revenge for the massacre of Peter the Hermit’s followers. When we tried to point out that it was the Christians who had initiated the brutal killing, our pleas fell on deaf ears. The Latins wanted blood and plunder – Muslim blood and Muslim treasure.

In a remarkable example of fortitude, the Emperor’s man, Tacitius, faced them down. Following strict orders from Alexius, he announced that the Christians were not to enter the city, that he would take the surrender on behalf of the Emperor, there would be no looting, and Qilich Arslan’s wife and family would be given safe escort to the east. He posted Byzantine guards at the doors of the Seljuk treasury, and the city gates were barred.